In self-service stores, the goods taken from the shelves by the consumer are usually placed in trolleys or containers provided to that end. The consumer then heads towards one of the exit stations, commonly known as "cashdesks" or "check-outs".
Heretofore employed check-out stations comprise a conveyor belt onto which the consumer unloads the goods contained in the trolley.
The cashier (hereinafter referred to as the operator) takes the articles one by one to register them with the aid of a cash register which memorizes the price and name of the article, indicated by a so-called bar code disposed on the article. The operator captures the data from the bar code either manually or automatically with the aid of a laser reader (scanner). The operation is thus continued until all the goods selected by the consumer have been registered. The consumer then pays for the total amount of the goods purchased. Payment is made at the same station as the registration and by the same operator. Concomitantly, and more generally after the operation of payment, the consumer must reload his/her trolley, placing either the articles themselves or the articles placed in plastic bags that the operator provided as registration was being effected.
This known way of proceeding and the means used present numerous drawbacks.
Firstly, these known means do not allow, or only with difficulty, the use of a container disposed on the trolley or of a container belonging to the consumer.
Unloading, registration, payment and reloading of the trolley are effected at the same station and by the same operator. These operations must be effected virtually sequentially, which consequently increases the time necessary for every consumer to effect all of these operations; the consumer is therefore obliged to remain a relatively long time at the cashdesk to effect these operations. Furthermore, the operations of unloading, registration and payment effected by the same person increase the complexity of the tasks that one and the same operator must perform.
From the standpoint of security, the fact of having relatively large sums of money, whether it be in the form of cheques, cash or credit card payments, handled by an operator occupied with other tasks and who must cope with a continuous sequence of operations, increases the risks of error.
The absence of use of container by the consumer, or of container supplied by the store itself, involves consuming a large number of plastic bags for collecting the goods together and loading them again in the trolley. The budget relative to plastic bags is high, up to several hundreds of thousands of francs for one year in one store. Any reduction in consumption of plastic bags, without sacrificing the conviviality and convenience of shopping, would thus enable substantial savings to be made and would also certainly be advantageous from the environmental standpoint.
The reduction in the time spent by each customer at the check-out leads to reducing his/her stress; it is, in fact, important to develop customers' loyalty by providing pleasant conditions when shopping, with reduced waiting time.
Furthermore, self-service store management must take into account the indiscretions not only of the customer but also of the staff, also known as "connivance trolley", which consists, for a cashdesk operator, in registering articles and/or prices which have no connection with those actually present in the trolley and taken away by the customer, with the operator's complicity. The present system does not make it possible to fight such intrigues efficiently.
The known systems and methods are thus observed to present numerous drawbacks concerning both the customers and the management of the selling point.
In this context, the present invention aims at overcoming these drawbacks and proposes a method and means for carrying it out, enabling a consumer to register the articles purchased, to pay the price thereof and to leave the store after a waiting time reduced to a minimum. The method and the device of the invention also aims at optimalizing management of the staff at the self-service store check-outs, both from the qualitative and quantitative standpoints, while improving security and reducing the risks of "connivance trolleys".